The Israelis captured copious secret Iranian documents that demonstrate the Islamic Republic long worked on underground nuclear facilities at Parchin. Now a detailed analysis of the Iranian scheme has come out, and it warrants close attention. The analysis shows that the Iranians’ secret nuclear program was successfully hidden from Western intelligence services (including our own) and from the IAEA, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which is supposed to monitor Iranian operations.
Parchin, of course, was off limits to IAEA inspectors. And as time went on, the Iran deal's shield to protect Iran's nuclear drive (there's a history of that) would be more important as off-limits facilities are developed.
And the ability of Iran to keep their key nuclear facilities out of reach of the deal's scope is only one way that Iran could hide nuclear work. If Iran has subcontracted important work to fellow Axis of Evil member North Korea, that is another path that escapes the scrutiny of the deal.
And in my more worried moments, I think it could be worse.
Do we still call what we endured under the Obama administration "smart diplomacy?"
And can our renewed focus on actually stopping Iran instead of pretending to stop Iran work before Iran has nuclear missiles?
